Evie's 6th Birthday Party!

Evie had her birthday party today at her taeqwondo academy. She had 18 friends attend and it was an awesome event! She even got to be a black belt for the day!! Thanks to Mandi for the awesome cupcakes and to Miss Melanie for conducting a fun party!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVIE!

My little girl is six years old... *sigh*....

She had a nice day.. first she had school, where all of her friends made her a Happy Birthday Book filled with drawings and well wishes along with pictures of each child beside their drawings.. sooooo cute and a great idea.. Thanks Mrs. Myers for that!

Then she got off the bus at Grandma's and we suprised her with a family "Suprise" Birthday Party.. which was very unexpected for her since we are having a friend birthday party for her next weekend. She had her cake and opened her gifts and had a lovely day playing with new games for her Nintendo DS, fingernail sets, swimming baby dolls and Barbies...

And then off to taeqwondo with Daddy! (She loves it when Daddy is off to take her because Mommy always does it)

Evan loved the cake, too!!!

What a perfect Angel! She grows smarter, respectful, more sincere, and sweeter everyday! We love you, baby girl!

A Huntng We Will Go...

Easter egg hunting that is!

Evie and I colored eggs on Saturday and then we spent a lovely Easter Day at Evie and Evan's Grandparents' house eating good foods and hunting eggs.

Evie was excited that she found ALL of the eggs and promptly called Evan a "loser" because he only found two.. (the two that we MADE Evie pass by).

Evan just didn't grasp the concept and wanted to simply play in the rocks.. ahhh, all boy! And Evie is all girl!

Hope everyone had a lovely day! It was a perfect day weather-wise.. 58 degrees and sunny! Today it is rainy and 45 degrees.. wish it would warm up and stay warm!!!

Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Have a Good Weekend and a Happy Easter!

Hello family and friends!

We're coming up on Easter weekend and the kids and I went to see our pal The Easter Bunny today!

Evan ran over to the bunny and Evie boosted him up onto his lap and a good time was had by all! LOL

The kids rode the carousel while they waited for the bunny to get off of his break. Evan LOVES going up and down just as much as Evie does.

And I thought that I would share the Easter picture that was taken by Portrait Innovations last month!

Busboom Castle

Hey all! Joe and I spent a fun filled and relaxing weekend with Joe's brother Stephen and his wife, Catherine at Busboom Castle in Dewey, Illinois.. (it's just 6 miles from my house!)

We enjoyed it immensely! We invited Joe's parents and my kids (kids stayed with them this weekend), over for dinner on Saturday night but for the most part, it was just us four. It was so nice to get to sleep in, watch movies on the big projection screen and the guys had fun sword fighting with Mashoonga sticks.
If you ever need to get away for the weekend and don't wanna go too far from home, this is the place!
www.busboomcastle.com

Bruce built the castle pretty much by himself with a few friends helping here and there. And the working drawbridge complete with fanfare trumpets while it's lowering, amazing!

Evie came over with me the first day to check things out.. here she is pictured with the pirate ship out back, hanging in the hammock and standing by the playhouse.





And Joe with Stephen



Dad and Stephen playing a game of Chess
Catherine doing some cooking

Joe and I..
The game room with the air hockey table

Projection screen, it's hard to tell by the picture, but we were watching "Anchorman" (That's Champ on the screen" LOL

Dining room

EDITED APRIL 8TH:

FYI.. if you decide to rent the castle, be sure that you touch and move nothing... put everything (especially the salt and pepper shakers) back where you found it.. or he'll let you know how disappointed you made him... (after I cleaned his whole castle before leaving)... it "breaks his heart" to have to rent it out... just so you know.

Evie's first tournament!

Evie participated in her very first martial arts tournament today!
She did a fantastic job!

Here she is with her friend, Chloe and Miss Melanie




I took 4 videos of her being judged and receiving her enormous trophy for "Best Intensity"..








We are so proud of you, Evie! Keep up the good work!

CAMO BELT!

She did it again! Another belt promotion! At this rate, we'll have ourselves a black belt in no time!

She has really grasped the concept of how important learning the techniques are to her. Her jumping front kicks tonight were phenomenal!

Here's the video of Evie receiving her camo belt.. you can hear Mr. Master's booming voice when he yells Evie's name and then you can see Miss Melanie not wanting Evie to have her camo belt.. (means she's going on to a new class and Mel doesn't want to let go of her leaders).



And here she is with her new belt and Mama tightening it. Camo looks good on her!